New research suggests that our brains have a built-in bias against people whose accents don't sound like our own.

That's the conclusion of Scottish researchers who presented their work[great overview of the research at this link] at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego.

The team ... used a functional MRI scanner to study the brains of 20 native Scots as they listened to native English speakers with Scottish, American and southern English accents. They focused on the brain's temporal voice area, which seems to specialize in processing characteristics of particular voices.

"The pattern of neural activity differed strikingly in response to their own specific accent compared with other English accents," [Patricia] Bestelmeyer said. "The initial results suggest that such vocal samples somehow reflect group membership or social identity, so that 'in-group' voices are processed differently from the 'out-group.'"

... Dr. Bestelmeyer noted that people attribute more positive traits to their native accent, indicating that we are more likely to hire someone or buy from someone who sounds like us.

Anyone with the goal of persuading others may want to to follow this line of research as it unfolds. If you are interested in that and other voice research, you may want to check in periodically at University of Glasgow's Voice Neurorecognition Lab.